Pastor Mark Mikels
September 10, 2006

“MY COMMITMENT AS AN AMERICAN – Part Two”

“My Relationship To My Society“

Church Under Construction – Behavioral Phase #6

Intro … This morning we enter into a section of our Sonlife Covenant where we could easily spend a month but we’re only going to spend a day. It’s the part of the Covenant that outlines what I’m calling “My Responsibility To My Society”. To understand this part of our Covenant we need to acknowledge the truth of  …

Today’s Key Concept …

The fundamental UNIT in God’s Social ORDER is the FAMILY.

From the very beginning of time, God (to borrow Dr. Dobson’s designation) has had a “focus on the family”. God created Adam and Eve and instructed them to be fruitful and to multiply and to exercise responsible dominion     over all the earth. God has used family images to reveal truth about His Own Nature – God the Father and God the Son. Christ has used family images to reveal truth about The Church – it is His Bride.

Jesus referred to the basic dual nature of man when he explained the basis for life-long marriage by saying, “In the beginning God created them male and female … and for this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Man’s maleness and woman’s femaleness seeks completion and fulfillment – in the blending of the two in marriage that completion is to be found … and from that blending a family is intended to come and the human race continued and the nature of the church illustrated.

The family is intended to function as a child’s first school house and first church house – in the family is where a child is to first learn the truths of God and the basic realities of life. Ideally, a family consists of a husband and wife committed to Christ who are rearing their children in the nurture of the Lord – a family where the parents demonstrate by example the very godly traits that they would teach to their children.

Ideally, this family together exhibits a kind of unity and commitment to one another that mirrors that of the heavenly family itself.

This is the kind of family that we at Sonlife Community Church would take as our model and our inspiration though we recognize that many factors not always under our control can alter our own experience.

Death can alter that family paradigm … divorce can as well … misbehavior of various types can enter in and force the family to move forward into less than the most ideal circumstances.

We at Sonlife Community Church both promote the ideal and recognize the realities in the world in which we live … We at Sonlife Community Church are committed to helping every family be the healthiest spiritually that it can be. And to that end we at Sonlife Community Church, recognizing that there are numerous threats to the family in
our current American Society, together make the following commitment …

My Sonlife Commitment …

I will stand resolutely AGAINST those destructive, ungodly PRACTICES in our society which threaten the very EXISTENCE of the God-ordained family unit.

Here’s the point … Things that threaten the clear understanding and the free and proper functioning of the family, threaten the clear understanding and the free and proper functioning of God’s Plan for Man …

In our society today, a biblical understanding of the family flies directly in the face of much that is deemed socially acceptable and politically correct and as a result there is much in our current society that directly “threatens the God-ordained family unit”.

Consider then with me this morning A Biblically-Based Family Threat List – (things that do in fact threaten the very existence of the God-ordained family unit – things that God does, in His Word, directly oppose) …

I do not intend to discuss them at length this morning but to simply identify them and link each of them to some appropriate Scripture …

1. FORNICATION and ADULTERY … (1 Corinthians 6:18; Ex 20:14)

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18)

“You shall not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14)

From the beginning of time, there have been kids sneaking around having sex and there have been married men and women cheating on their spouses. Our society today has in many places made it almost standard procedure. The ideas of purity and fidelity have become almost laughable to many. There are segments of our society and places in our country where over 75% of all live births are to unwed mothers – in those segments of our society and in those places in our country, you might as well say that the “god-ordained family unit” no longer exists except as a distant memory in the minds of the older members. This is the result of sexual activity among unmarried people being looked upon as completely acceptable and normal – almost as though there is no recognition that the one activity leads to the other reality. The concept of marital fidelity has also fallen out of mainstream thinking … marriages routinely break up because one partner has “found someone else”. The bottom line of all this is that the concept and the reality of “family” suffers greatly and God’s heart breaks as He surveys the mess that we as a society of people have made of things.

2. HOMOSEXUALITY – (Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26-27)

“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 18:22

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Romans 1:26-27

We don’t need a thousand verses here … we only actually need one. God is disgusted with homosexual behavior …  It’s perverted and sinful. It’s not an acceptable “alternative lifestyle” … It’s certainly not a form of “marriage” – and people living in that relationship do not deserve the designation “family”.

I suspect that Paul in this passage from Romans was describing the state of affairs in the world prior to God sending the Great Flood in Noah’s day. Mankind had so destroyed God’s Plan for man that God simply decided to “start all over again” with a new family.

If that was indeed the condition mankind had fallen into, then it’s pretty easy to understand why Noah reacted so strongly when his son Ham, looked upon his father’s nakedness in the tent. (Gen. 9:20) Homosexuality destroys family as God ordained it.

Now consider these other threats to the family as we list them in our Covenant …

3. PORNOGRAPHY – (Philippians 4:8)

Pornography is sex by proxy – it’s watching someone else do what we are not permitted or able to do. Pornography fills the mind with images that arouse improper, unwholesome desires. Pornography will in time make almost impossible the feeling of proper, wholesome desires. Possibly Ham gaze upon his Father Noah fell into this category as well.Pornography directly contradicts the instruction in Philippians 4:8 …

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable– if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.

Quick test … If it arouses passions that can not be properly and wholesomely expressed then you shouldn’t be looking at it.

4. Spouse and Child ABUSE – (Ephesians 5:28-29; 6:4)

“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28-29)

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

Treating any human being under our care abusively is an affront to God who would desire that all men see His Love in our actions. Abusiveness in the home effectively hides that love – sometimes forever.

5. DRUG Abuse – (Proverbs 23: 29-33; Ephesians 5:18)

Frequently spouse and child abuse arises directly from some form of drug abuse … we take things into our bodies that short-circuit the control that we might normal exercise – we come under the influence of things that have no godly connection.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. Proverbs 23:29-33

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.Ephesians 5:18

If you are going to allow yourself to come “under the influence” of anything, allow yourself to “come under the influence of the Spirit of God“!

Drug abuse destroys bodies – Drug abuse destroys lives – Drug abuse destroys careers and Drug abuse destroys families. It’s on our “threat list” big time. Warn your children against drug use … clean your own life of dependence upon “recreational” drugs (including nicotine and alcohol).

6. Convenience ABORTIONS – (Exodus 20:13)

Let me clarify immediately that almost all abortions performed in this country fall into the category of convenience abortions – I’m talking probably 95% or more. All abortions involve the premeditated taking of innocent human life – the very thing that the Bible prohibits.

“You shall not commit murder” – Exodus 20:13

Whether our laws currently allow it or not, abortion is wrong – it is a sin against God and against the family of man.

7. Unscriptural DIVORCE – (Matthew 19:3-9; 1 Cor. 7:10-16)

Let me say right off the bat – “Not all divorce is a sin” – some divorce is permitted by God though divorce is never commanded by God.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” Haven’t you read, he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,’ and said,   `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ?
So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

That’s the Biblical position … Here’s how the Apostle Paul expressed it …

Words from the Lord …

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

Words from a concerned Pastor …

To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified (brought under a holy and beneficial influence) through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified (brought under a holy and beneficial influence) through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean (possessors of nothing but an ungodly outlook on life), but as it is, they are holy (possessors of a godly outlook and hopefully a genuine godly life).

But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? (There is no guaranteed that he/she would have ever “come around” – you’ve done what you could and now it’s over).

There are legitimate reasons why some marriages end in divorce – both God and our government are concerned that those affected by such divorce suffer as little as possible – from guilt and from financial deprivation.

However, most divorce in our country today is not of that sort … people divorce generally because “it didn’t work out” and that’s not a biblically sound reason and those kinds of divorces definitely undermine the entire concept of secure family life … it’s that kind of thinking and that kind of almost casual action that we are committed to teach and stand against.

And now one final thing that threatens the “God-ordained family unit” and something that actually underlies all the rest of these “family threats”.

We call it in our Covenant …

8. Self-Centered INDIVIDUALISM – (Philippians 2:4-5, 19-21)

Self-Centered individualism first raised its ugly head in the Garden of Eden when Satan convinced Eve and then Adam that watching out for themselves was much better than letting God watch out for them.

“What’s in it for me?” is the key and frequently only concern of the self-centered individual. Self-centered individualism ignores and discounts the needs of others – when those others are family members, the family suffers greatly. The success of the family depends upon a broader outlook … in fact, the family is the very laboratory where
such an outlook is to be practiced.

Hear these words from the Apostle Paul …

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus … (He actually sacrificed himself for us).  I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also maybe cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.

Resisting self-centered individualism is fundamental to protecting the family unit as God ordained it to be.

In conclusion then …these eight practices of our current society are practices against which we as a Church Body are committed to resolutely stand and standing resolutely against these practices means teaching our children the true Biblical standards and demonstrating to them in our daily lives the true Biblical realities.

It also means opposing the things in our society that contribute to these practices … might be by prayer, it might at times be by protest, and it might at times be by our participation in the election process.

Final Thot … A solidly committed Christian Community is SOCIETY’S best friend!

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